“The song cycle is the most original musical form created in the first half of the nineteenth century. It most clearly embodies the Romantic conception of experience as a gradual unfolding and illumination of reality in place of the Classical insistence on an initial clarity. The form of Schubert's song cycle is not less precise than that of a Classical sonata, but its precision is only gradually comprehended as it unfolds.”

— Charles Rosen

Source: The Romantic Generation (1995), Ch. 3 : Mountains and Song Cycles

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Charles Rosen 69

American pianist and writer on music 1927–2012

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